Outbound call management equipment is used to accomplish a variety of commercially and socially significant activities. For example, this equipment is used to take surveys to determine customer satisfaction, to seek political opinions, and to do market research. They are also used to sell products and services and to effectuate fund raising activities and bill collection, among other things.
Traditional outbound call management equipment involves the automatic dialing of a predetermined list of telephone numbers and connection of called parties who answer the calls placed in accordance with the calling program to agents who then interact with those called parties. A telephone customer seeking such outbound call management services now only has two alternatives. He can purchase expensive outbound call management hardware and software and attach it to his own private telephone system or he can retain a special service bureau which has obtained this hardware and software and now makes the services available to others. Both of these service alternatives may be unsatisfactory for many telephone customers. The cost of the hardware and software needed to effectuate outbound call management is prohibitive for an individual or a small organization. These people are thus effectively precluded from obtaining outbound call management services through this route. They can seek the help of outbound call management service bureaus, but the resources of these bureaus are usually limited and inflexible so that access to the service is subject to schedule restrictions and there is no way to conveniently tailor the service to changing customer needs. Also, these service bureaus are extra middlemen who may add needless costs to the process.
Accordingly, many telecommunications network users have been effectively precluded or severely limited in their ability to obtain outbound call management services using existing equipment. Therefore, there is an urgent need to provide an economical outbound call management apparatus and procedure accessible to wide spectrum of those who use telecommunications services.